Songkraan Results

Hey Mom and Dad,

Well, once again, not much to report regarding finding, teaching, and baptizing. Songkraan is winding down, but now is the time when people start travelling to visit friends and relatives. We have almost no appointments until Friday. That's ok though. Hitting the streets and talking to people will help us improve our Thai and find some fresh, new investigators who are ready and willing to hear the message of the Restored gospel. So, last week I said that we had decided to switch preparation day to today. Well, on Sunday it became apparent to us that Sunday and Monday were going to be the worst two days, so we had preparation day yesterday and joined in the festivities. It was insane. We started out waking up as normal at 0630 and heading straight for the branch president's house. He had enlisted our services for some landscaping. We got done about 2.5 hours ahead of schedule, so we waited in the shade for a bit while President Suphat's wife, Sister Phanop, made us some kaawsoy and kaawniawmamuang. Kaawsoy is a dish that is unique to the north. She made it way spicy and it was the best I have had so far. Kaawniawmamuang is sticky rice prepared with coconut milk and served with mango on top. Oh man! It is awesome. I am going to go through withdrawals when mangos go out of season and I can't get it anymore!
We headed home at about 1030, and people were already out trying to drench us as we rode home. We got home and had planned to rest a bit, but we hadn't worked too hard and we were all ready to go play in the water. So we went. It was, like I said, insane. Imagine rush hour on the beltway. Stop and go. Cars as far as the eye can see. Now put people all the way up and down the street and in between the cars. Now turn all the cars into trucks with people and buckets of ice water in the back. And give all the people at the side of the road the same, plus hoses (fire or garden, and fortunately the fire hoses aren't on full blast). The people in between the cars on the street have super soakers, or buckets/cups filled with a paste made from this chalky powder stuff which they put on each others' faces. Now press play and everyone starts soaking each other and putting "bang" on faces (that's what powder is in Thai, and the paste stuff is called the same). It was awesome.The four of us just walked the city for two or three hours squirting people with our guns. At first we were trying to avoid the bang, but I was watching people and I noticed that it wasn't something to be avoided. It was like an exchange thing. Well, I didn't have any bang of my own, so I just started reaching in other peoples' cups or buckets as they came to get me and getting them in return. About an hour into it, these to little guys, probably about 13 years old, came up and asked if they could roll with us. The answer: of course. So now our fire team was up to 6. Haha. They stayed with us until we headed back to the house.We went back to the house about 1430, ate lunch, took a nap, and then went back out at 1630. This time there were a little less people, but it was still crazy. And we had to be careful because the crowd at this point was older and more liquored up. First thing that happened after we parked our bikes is a huge, shirtless, fat guy came up and offered me some beer. I declined, telling him it has no benefit, and he decided that was worth a hug. So we hugged. Haha. Actually hugged a lot of drunk guys as we went along. Haha. Unfortunately, I also had to avoid countless transexuals and even got chased by a gay dude or two. The second guy probably would have got me if he hadn't let out a girly little scream which alerted me to his presence. It was a close call, but I heard the sound, caught him in my periph, and got out of there fast!It's tough not being able to do any work, but I decided that if I couldn't do missionary work, I was going to jump into this Thai tradition and enjoy myself. I had a blast.Well, that's all for now.

Love you all.
Aaron